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David Sarrut edited this page Sep 22, 2023 · 5 revisions

We are pleased to provide you with an update on the progress of Gate10. While Gate 9.3 continues to serve your needs, we have been hard at work shaping the future with Gate10. Although we don't have a fixed release date yet, we're steadily moving forward through successive beta versions, with the current one being 10.0beta03. This beta version is already quite usable (our team uses it extensively), but please be aware that some API changes may still occur.

1 - Installation

The user version pip install --pre opengate is still much behind the developer version. It will be updated soon.

The developer version is harder to install but we recommend you to start with it while the code is still fast evolving.

WARNING: some of the new features below are only available in the developer version.

2 - New features compared to GATE 9.3

Here are some highlights of what's happening with Gate10:

  • Windows Version: in addition to Linux and MacOS, a Windows version is now available. Warning: it lacks multithreading and Qt visualization;
  • Parallel worlds: see below;
  • Enhanced IEC NEMA phantom description: the IEC NEMA 6 spheres phantom description for SPECT or PET simulations is available;
  • Spawn Process Management: Gate10 can be embedded in notebooks or custom applications. We will focus on explaining this feature in a future newsletter;
  • VRML Visualization: alternative to Qt visualisation;
  • Motion actor: to easily move volumes from run to run;
  • Improve e+ source with updated spectra (18F, 68Ga, 89Zr etc);
  • GAN source available;
  • ARF SPECT detector model.

3 - Focus on "Parallel Worlds"

Gate10 introduces the Geant4 feature known as parallel worlds, allowing you to create isolated copies of detector geometries and particle tracks within your simulations. This capability enables you to model different experimental conditions or scenarios simultaneously without interference. For instance, this can be interesting for SPECT imaging when voxelized volumes intersect detectors. Detectors and voxelized volumes can exist in two separate "worlds," with particles in the intersection considered only in the detector. You can explore this feature with the test example test054).

4 - Not yet available features compared to GATE 9.3

  • PET, SPECT: no Coincidence sorter, no DeadTime digitizer module, no PileUp digitizer module;
  • Dose photon: no TLE estimator;
  • SPECT speedup: no FFD estimator;
  • No optical photon module (work in progress);
  • No EM field;
  • No 90Y fast source;
  • Dose2Water option of DoseActor (work in progress);
  • No STL volume import (work in progress).

5 - Examples available

We got more than 130 tests! They are automatically run every time the code is modified. Users can start them all with "opengate_tests" executable. Those tests also serve as useful examples, you can find all of them here: https://github.com/OpenGATE/opengate/tree/master/opengate/tests/src

As always, your feedback is crucial to us. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, suggestions, or comments.

Thank you for your continued support and contributions. 2023/09/20

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